Categories

Monday, September 30, 2013

Steampunk convention in Porto (and Barcelona, and Madrid, and Vienna, and so on... it's the Euro Steam Con after all) this past weekend. I had to ditch my fancy outfit at the last minute due to an unfortunate lack of time to finish it, but apart from that, I'd say it was a very successful event. Cupcakes happened, short films happened (Aurora, applause for effort and use of budget; Invention Of Love, DON'T TURN YOUR WOMEN INTO MACHINES GODDAMNIT; The Tale Of Mr Rêvus, evidence that a cute critter is the easiest way to get people to like your movie; and a few scenes from Airlords Of Aria), fun discussions happened, and we may or may not have planned to invade the Vatican.

Not a lot of pictures, because for better or worse I'm still battling my short story from last week - and due to the sheer effort, the visual side of my brain has shut down for the time being. I used to be such a good multitasker... I wonder what's happened.

Monday, September 23, 2013

The good thing about taking a blog hiatus, I believe, is that you always end up with a backlog of photos of somewhat interesting-looking events to write about. Today's post will be one of those attempts at catching up, and I hope you will forgive my somewhat clunky writing - but my verbal skills are very much finite, and at the moment, I'm directing them all towards finishing a short story. It's part western part steampunk part creature feature, and I may or may not be able to finish it before the deadline. Check back in October. The plot thickens!

Anyway. Back in July, I went to a medieval fair with a small army of friends. It'd been years since I'd gone to one, and it was a pretty fun experience. We set off on Monday morning, spent the day around the fair (and because my comrades were in costume, people kept stopping us to ask questions, thinking we were part of the staff...), attended the tournament after dinner (cue in screaming for our favorite knight on our side... and for the lady knight on the enemy side), camped overnight, had breakfast on Tuesday in a nearly empty café while the city still slept (at 10am... I don't know either), enjoyed the rest of the day, and finished our stay with a fancy foot bath and a cup of mint tea in the middle of nowhere.

I am 99% sure we will rinse and repeat next year. More photos after the non-existent jump, and man, I really need to get rid of my 18-55mm lens, it pales in comparison to the 55-250mm.

Thank you for reading, and apologies for my sporadic posting... guess I'm still getting used to this whole new university-less schedule. I think I will aim for one post a week for the time being, until I get everything figured out.

Thursday, September 05, 2013

I told you I'd come back to see you once university was over, and... indeed, here I am, and there it is. It's a little weird to think of myself as a Criminology graduate now, but hey, if I take it one step at a time, I'm pretty sure I'll get there eventually.

Meanwhile, I'll leave you with a image-HEAVY post of the months we spent apart.

We begin with this stag beetle, found dead under a tree. I didn't really know the proper way to pin it, but I knew I wanted to show off the wing, so I improvised.

Back then I was still locked inside, studying for my final exams.

My mother grew up in France, so while she does have a huge collection of (now vintage) records... they're all french singers. Ah well!

New jars I got for a few cents each, and my little box of baby teeth on top.

I don't think you've been formally introduced to my tiny little bird skeleton? First attempt at cleaning bones last summer... it could have gone better, but I was really proud of myself back then.

And finally, first attempts at butterfly lockets. The second one, I've been using pretty much non-stop. I love it.

Then the supermoon happened.

Bo was a really photogenic dog, as usual...

...and we took him, along with Crude, for the first serious walk of the season. The puppy couldn't quite contain his enthusiasm. (remember him at six weeks? look how much he's grown!)

Crude also enjoys long swims in the creek that separates our property from the neighbour's. He comes out filthy every single time, but really, so do we when we walk in there.

With Bo, in the midst of cleaning the aforementioned creek. This dog doesn't really get along with summer, so he spends most of his time standing in the water, very still, just cooling down. I've done that too, it's really effective.

Random sunset shots.

Random shot of a vertebra my sister and I found, I think, as we were picking strawberries. It looked pretty clean, but still I decided to macerate it in a jar... the water turned light pink after a few days, and it's currently dark orange.

Also, there was this tiny tiny grasshopper, and while I was struggling to get the focus right, it turned right towards me. It was the cutest.

My grandfather rescued a couple of baby doves, and we had them in the apartment for the first few days, back when they still couldn't eat on their own. Right now, they're fully grown, and have their own little (right, little... I'll show you one of these days) home in the country house.

I'm not too fond of ice cream (this one was actually my dad's), but I had to snap it just for the looks of it.

This photo chronicles the beginning of the slow, slow decline of my camera's auto-focus feature. I don't wear my glasses at the beach (so, you know, I can't actually SEE what I'm shooting) and it's not like I can use manual focus and the screen either (glare, loads of it)... so without auto-focus, yeah, no beach pictures for me.

But fear not, because we found an antique fair right by the boardwalk, with plenty of secondhand books to keep me entertained.

No, really, my auto-focus is dead.

Though this one kind of got away.

The end of August took me right back to my university town, to pack up and say goodbye (more like see you later) to the sights and sounds of these past four years.

I discovered a type of ice cream I actually did love.

Aaaaaaand I shot the last sunset from my university apartment. We returned the key a few days ago, so I guess those walls will be seeing a new tennant very soon. I hope they enjoy the place as much as I did.

So what about you, readers, friends, family, etc? How was your summer, and what are your plans for fall?
xx